I’ll be bland

Just over three decades ago, James Cameron released a little slasher film with a sci-fi twist starring the dude from Conan the Barbarian. The Terminator became a colossal hit, and the dude from Conan went on to bigger movies and a temporary job in government.

Terminator: Genisys, the fifth film in the Terminator franchise, isn’t nearly as good as the original or its first sequel, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, also by Cameron. Thankfully, it’s slightly better than the third and fourth Terminator films (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and Terminator: Salvation), films where Cameron was absent and off doing other things like Titanic and his jazzed-up Smurf movie.

Cameron himself was part of the marketing campaign for Genisys, admiring the film’s faithfulness to his two original offerings. While I share his enthusiasm for some aspects of the movie, the film isn’t without its major problems. In some ways, I’m kind of surprised Cameron liked this movie.

There are lots of tricks played within the storyline using the time travel gimmick, skewing the whole Terminator universe out of whack. This gives director Alan Taylor the chance to revisit and recreate events from the original Terminator, including naked Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first scene as the steely-eyed cyborg. The results are often fun, but a little chaotic and sloppy at times.

First, the good stuff: Arnold Schwarzenegger is back in his most iconic role, and he’s great. He plays a couple of different ages here, although he can’t get credit for playing his 1984 self in this film. That Arnold is a total computer creation, and an amazing one at that. Old Arnold does fight his 1984 self in a scene I never thought I would see.

Arnie is as convincing as ever as a now aging cyborg, with his goofy pretend smiles and droll asides. As for action, the film provides plenty of good Terminator fights, and San Francisco, yet again, has a bad time at the movies, suffering through nuclear blasts and catastrophic school bus accidents on the Golden Gate Bridge.

OK, the bad: Emilia Clarke is a washout as Sarah Connor, Jason Clarke is all wrong for John Connor, and Jai Courtney absolutely stinks as Kyle Reese. These are big flaws—flaws big enough to derail most movies.

Emilia Clarke seems disconnected from her part, and there’s insincerity in her every line delivery. Jason Clarke plays John Connor like a cartoon character, which is disheartening after the good work done by Edward Furlong and even Nick Stahl and Christian Bale in the prior films. Stahl and Bale were in subpar movies, but they still came off as decent John Connors. Clarke, whose John Connor takes a sinister turn in this film, plays the evil twist as a snickering caricature, with little nuance. It feels out of place.

The biggest soul sucker is Courtney, always an uninteresting actor and very bland in this one. Watch the original Terminator for a real angst ridden, on-the-edge characterization of a guy who has been through the apocalypse. (Thank you, Michael Biehn.) Courtney plays Reese like a soulless video game character. There’s no reason to root for him.

But, still, I like this movie. I like it because Arnold looks cool in his Terminator shades, and things blow up real good. Sometimes, I’m relatively easy to please.

Do the time travel complications get to be a little confusing and a little much at times? Sure they do, but I admire Genisys for stretching out and attempting different things in the Terminator universe. Some of the paradox stuff had me scratching my head, but it all sort of ties together in the end. I did hate the total rip-off of the holographic villain from the Resident Evil series, though.

In the end, I had a good time, albeit an exhausting one, watching Terminator: Genisys. I want more, for sure, and the movie leaves things open for the possibility of future sequels, two of which are currently planned. (Stay for the post-credits scene.)

If the future installments get the go-ahead, they should keep aging Arnie but fire the rest of the cast. If this film lacks anything, it’s human charisma. As for Terminators, Arnie has things more than covered.